


I Feel You

by Ineffabilitea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Empathy, M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-14 03:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ineffabilitea/pseuds/Ineffabilitea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has a Link, a one-way empathic connection to their soulmate. Finding your soulmate based on the evidence of the link can be difficult, but once you find them, one kiss and you'll be Fused, your Links united. </p><p>John still hasn't found his soulmate, but he won't give up the search, because whoever it is has been lonely ever since John's Link first emerged. Meanwhile, Sherlock maintains the fiction that he doesn't have a Link at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Emergence

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/20063.html?thread=121201503#t121201503
> 
> Not beta'd or Britpicked. Let me know if you spot anything egregious.

John was sixteen when his Link emerged, so he was luckier than his sister Harry, whose Link began when she was fourteen. Driven to distraction by the second set of emotions pressing at her own thoughts, she'd left school, like so many early emergers, and then turned to alcohol despite the efforts of her Link counselor to help her stabilise. Maybe John was supposed to be excited to emerge, like many of his schoolmates, who daydreamed about Fusing with whoever was on the other end of their link within days and spending the remainder of their lives with the bliss of a united mind, but after Harry's emergence he couldn't see it that way. 

It began when John awoke in the middle of the night to a piercing headache unlike any he'd had before, a diffuse pain that had his whole skull throbbing. _Oh no,_ he thought, _please no, just a few more months, just until GCSEs are over_. Secretly, John'd been hoping his Link wouldn't emerge until he was eighteen or even later, would let him at least begin uni before he'd have to manage the disruption. But this headache felt like the textbook example of Link emergence, just like the school's counselors described it.

John lay there for what felt like hours, nauseous with anxiety and apprehension. He hoped the girl whose emotions he'd be feeling all too soon was nice. He hoped she didn't feel too intensely, didn't veer from glee to despair to annoyance like some of the more dramatic girls in his class. Maybe her own Link to him had already emerged; maybe she was already meditating, doing calming exercises, trying to keep his own mood swings from ruining her GCSEs. Of course, she could already be in uni, or she could be younger than him. He hoped she wasn't younger; he'd hate to be putting anyone through what Harry went through, let alone someone whose mind he was destined to share, someone he would love.

The end, when it came, was extremely anticlimactic; the pain had gradually ebbed, leaving behind not the whirlwind of emotions he'd feared, but something like loneliness. John poked at the new and unfamiliar sensation; he could tell the feeling wasn't his, could feel his own nerves and exhaustion running parallel to it, but he couldn't make it recede, couldn't stop thinking about the loneliness. But it was quiet, somehow, worn, as if … as if whoever was feeling it had been feeling it for so long it barely registered any longer, he decided, and immediately a sympathetic pang of sadness ran through him. He'd meet this girl, someday, Fuse with her, and he didn't want her to feel lonely, not ever. 

This was what made having a Link so dangerous; what he felt through the Link seemed impossible to ignore, made him forget his own worries. He should go wake his mum and dad, have them keep an eye on him until the morning, when they could call the school and make an appointment for him with a Link counselor. That was the first step. The counselor would help him establish some control and then he could begin to look. And when he found her, kissed her, Fused with her, neither of them could ever be lonely again.

~*~

Sherlock was not in the least surprised when his Link emerged when he was only twelve. After all, studies indicated Link emergence was tied to maturing brain function, and it was Sherlock's experience that his brain had been superior to that of a typical adult since he was ten, especially when one considered that a typical adult was essentially sharing their mind with another, giving them, theoretically, access to twice the brain power. None of them seemed to use it, however, and Sherlock had concluded that Fusing must actually subtract from one's mental capability, and so he would never do it. Since Fusion could take place only when Linkmatches kissed, it should be easily avoidable.

Sherlock didn't tell anyone about the Link, and of course none of the unobservant fools who passed for authority figures around him noticed, because who expected a Link in a prepubescent? Mummy didn't notice, because Mummy already worried about him excessively, so she didn't want to notice anything else worrying, which made it easier to conceal from her. 

Mycroft would have noticed, but he was off at university, and Sherlock didn't think Mycroft would tell on him, anyway, because Mycroft was the one who had given him the idea. When Mycroft's own Link had emerged (at the much more typical age of fifteen) he'd sat for one session with the counselor Mummy had chosen for him, locked himself in his room for a day, and when he'd emerged, had firmly declared that no more counseling would be required. True to his word, he'd betrayed not a glimmer of disruptive foreign emotion since. 

And if Mycroft could do it, Sherlock would be able to master his Link even more quickly. No counselor would be required. He had, after all, read all the relevant literature on the topic, and surely understood it better than the overly empathetic simpletons who sought out Link counseling as a career.

Still, the actual emergence of the link was an upsetting experience, and he was glad no one would think it odd if he stayed in his room, didn't speak to anyone, and missed meals. The headache itself was bearable, no worse than when he got caught up in an experiment and went too long without sleep and food, or when he had no experiments and nothing to keep his mind from turning on itself. It was the anticipation of the link that was more unpleasant, and all his research hadn't left him confident of what was to come. He couldn't seem to stop himself hoping that whoever was on the other end of his Link wasn't a complete idiot, despite copious evidence, statistical and anecdotal, that most people were. 

When the headache lifted and the new sensation of the link resolved itself into nothing more than the doltish happiness of someone complacently average, Sherlock didn't take the time to wonder why they were happy. It didn't matter to him. He would never find them, never Fuse with them. Once he had this mundane distraction under control, he could go on being extraordinary. And he'd do it all on his own.


	2. Disappointment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I am such a terrible updater! In the future, I will make no promises on timing, but I do plan to finish this story no matter how much writer's block I face.

Sherlock found Link counseling tedious in the extreme. The feeble-minded time-wasters he was forced to see if he wished to remain enrolled simply could not be convinced that he did not have a Link to be counseled about. This would have been positively insightful if any of them had instead believed that he had a Link, had learned to control it on his own, and was now denying its existence to the world at large, as was actually the case. But, of course, their average-at-best minds did not even conceive of the possibility. 

No, the tedium Sherlock was forced to endure was that of their adamant optimism. His every assertion that he did not have a Link because he was a (high-functioning) sociopath was met with statistics on late emergers and laughable claims that he should not "give up hope". Hope! It was proof of the idiocy that afflicted those around him, that they believed 'hope' was the appropriate way to feel about the possibility of sharing his brilliant mind with another who couldn't possibly understand it.

Tossing the latest pamphlet on methods of encouraging Link emergence via proper diet into the nearest bin, Sherlock decided he was done with the charade. He would no longer waste his time in Link counseling, and if the university had a problem with that, they could take it up with Mycroft, whose command of bureaucracy had its (limited) uses.

Of course, Mycroft would also feel the need to talk to Sherlock about the situation. On the whole, though, Sherlock felt that trading years of boring counseling for one conversation, however unpleasant, with Mycroft, was a clear net positive. Mycroft was too subtle, and had too many secrets of his own, to directly challenge Sherlock's assertion that he had no Link; instead, he'd simply make implications, and Sherlock would ignore them, and imply things about Mycroft in turn. It bothered Sherlock that Mycroft knew Sherlock did have a Link, but as long as Mycroft didn't force Sherlock to admit it, the situation was tolerable.

He hadn't initially intended to hide his Link forever; at first, he'd only meant to wait and fake emergence at a more 'typical' age. The Link, however, stayed as easy to hide at 16 and 17 as it had been at 13 and 14, and as he watched all his so-called peers become even more insipid when they emerged, and observed how even those with good control seemed obsessed with Fusing, it was obvious to him that he was different, and that his Link must be as different as he was. After all, Sherlock never thought of Fusing, except with a sense of dread.

Sherlock rarely bothered to experience or acknowledge the feelings transmitted by the Link, but from the few occasions he did it was obvious that his Linkmatch was completely average in his emotional range and, happily, had good control. It would be a disaster for Sherlock to join himself permanently to someone so tragically mundane, and in any case, obviously their Link must be very weak, if Sherlock could ignore it 99% of the time, while all around him normal people dropped out of school and failed exams and did many other ill-advised things under the influence of their own Links.

Once Sherlock had come to the conclusion that his Link was so weak it probably barely counted as a Link, and that he would never wish to Fuse with anyone he was Linked to, it was easy to see that he might as well behave as though he had no Link at all. Maybe, if he ignored the Link long enough, it would even be true. Not that he was hoping his Linkmatch would die an untimely death; he was not _that_ callous. No, it was more likely that the Link would dissipate from neglect, and then his erstwhile Linkmatch could form a new Link, with someone normal, and they could Fuse and live happily ever after and leave him out of it.

~*~

John didn't agree with Harry about much, but he had come around to seeing her point about Link counselors: they were almost completely useless.

Of course, they'd arrived at the conclusion by completely different paths. Harry thought counselors were useless because they hadn't helped her control her Link when it emerged; John thought they were pointless because when it came to helping him find his Linkmatch, they had nothing useful to say or do, just bloody pamphlets about mood tracking and Fusion-finding services and trusting the hand of Fate to bring you and your Linkmatch together.

Mood tracking was fine if you'd already met someone you suspected might be a match, Fusion-finders were effective but specialized in older people, and the sodding hand of Fate was all well and good if you were in no rush to Fuse. But John needed to find his Linkmatch as soon as possible, and not because he couldn't control his Link, because he could.

He'd tried explaining, to the first counselor, the one at school, about how unhappy his Linkmatch was. The counselor had been sympathetic, but gradually John had realized that the counselor wanted John to see it as a good thing, because depression muted the emotions transmitted through the Link, made them easier for John to control.

As though what mattered was what was easiest for John, and not what would be easiest for his Linkmatch. John'd barely felt any positive emotions from her since the Link emerged, just occasional satisfaction or smugness, or more often a kind of blankness he thought of as focus, which was only notable as a break from loneliness and frustration and boredom. That was what mattered to John, anyway, that she clearly needed a friend at the very least, and her Linkmatch most of all, to help relieve that.

So Link counselors were bloody useless, because all they could give him were pamphlets and reassurances that he'd meet his Linkmatch someday, and in the meantime wasn't it a good thing that their Link was so easy to manage, that John was one of the lucky ones who could concentrate on uni and a career instead of Fusing? And all the while John wanted to shout at them that, sure, he could easily control his Link and focus on his medical training, but what good would that do him if, in the meantime, his Linkmatch decided to do something drastic? John didn’t want to imagine losing his Linkmatch to suicide before he'd even found her, even if it was likely he'd develop a second Link.

~*~

So naturally, when his Linkmatch did decide to do something drastic, it wasn't what John'd been dreading at all.

He was at the library, studying for a physiology exam, when things went … fuzzy around the edges. A sudden euphoria rushed over him, but it felt _wrong_ , too, and he couldn't stop it, or clamp down on it, and he'd started laughing hysterically, unable to stop himself and terrified out of his mind when he couldn’t. All around him, other students were hissing at him to be quiet, couldn’t he see they were trying to get work done, that it was a library, for chrissake, but when it quickly became apparent there was something wrong with him, a few people rushed over to try and help him, and someone headed to the reference desk to call 999. And then, mercifully, John passed out, diaphragm still spasming in a gasping parody of mirth.

When he regained consciousness in the student clinic and tried to explain what had come over him, he'd been made once again to see a Link counselor, and he wished to god this one had been useless, instead of assigned to carefully break the news to him that the sensation he described was typical of what occurred when one's Linkmatch was using mind-altering drugs.

For weeks, John suffered through daily sessions of specialized counseling on how to control his Link during these … episodes. The counselor sadly assured him that control grew easier with increased exposure to drugged sensation through the Link, which John soon discovered for himself was true, as his Linkmatch indulged again and again in her drug of choice. 

John didn't know if he was more upset with his Linkmatch, for turning to drugs with no thought for what it would do to _him_ , or himself, for not having found her yet. If he'd been able to do something to track her down, if they had already Fused, surely she wouldn't be doing this to herself just to feel happy, would she? 

Once John was finally able to control the Link again under all circumstances, all he could feel about his Link, and his Linkmatch, seemed to be numbness. No longer driven by the certainty that she was suffering and needed him, John made a decision: he would finish his medical degree, and then join the Army. He'd been drawn to military service before, but putting himself in possible life-threatening danger had been something he wasn't willing to do to his Linkmatch; now, he couldn’t bring himself to care.


	3. Tacit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short update, but an update!

Sherlock knew it was a meaningless coincidence that the first possible flatmate Mike Stamford introduced him to was his Linkmatch, since Fate was a purely supernatural concept weaker minds relied upon to inject meaning into the random minutiae of life.

Not that Sherlock knew John Watson was his Linkmatch from the moment he laid eyes upon him, or any such ridiculousness. His injury and its approximate date as deduced from John's state of recovery were suggestive, of course, but as Sherlock cared not at all about finding the Linkmatch he had no intention of Fusing with, he came to no definite conclusion.

Of course Mycroft, condescending meddler that he was, sent him a copy of John's service record, with an entirely unnecessary note attached on the time difference between London and Afghanistan, as though Sherlock would be unable to calculate it on his own. Typical Mycroft. Not that his motives were entirely clear; Mycroft seemed, like Sherlock himself, to regard Fusing as a misfortune best avoided in his own case, but one never knew if he might approve of it for Sherlock if he felt it would make his troublesome younger brother easier to manage.

Not that even Mycroft's file was definitive; there were billions of people in the world, after all, so statistically speaking many more people than just John had likely been grievously injured at the same moment that Sherlock's Link lit up with pain the intensity of which had left him as incoherent as if it were he himself who was near death. It could all just be a coincidence, and Sherlock's unwanted Linkmatch could still be literally anywhere in the world, not necessarily sharing a flat with him at 221B Baker Street in London.

Smaller pieces of evidence, however, continued to accumulate, most notably John's intensely negative reaction to Lestrade's revelation of Sherlock's past drug use. Minutes earlier Sherlock had confidently deduced that John had indeed made up his mind to share the flat, but immediately upon Sherlock's confirmation that Lestrade was not, in fact, joking, it had been just as clear that John was reconsidering. It was a good thing that Sherlock had already lied to him about his Link, as John's later remark that at least Sherlock was "only hurting himself" was clear evidence that John had been hurt by drug use on the part of his Linkmatch, and only grudgingly accepted this part of Sherlock's past because he believed Sherlock had no Linkmatch of his own.

If Sherlock weren't a high-functioning sociopath, he might feel guilt about this situation. As it was, after some belated research into the effects of drug use on Links, he had determined that any hurt he had caused John was purely psychological and attributable more to John's own reaction to the situation, as the scientific literature (well, as scientific as anything Link-related could be) was clear that while drug use could be felt through a Link, the sensations were not in themselves damaging and became as controllable as ordinary feelings with practice. And it wasn't as though John seemed to be sparing any thought for the pain he had in turn caused his Linkmatch when he'd been shot, so Sherlock felt it was only fair and practical to disregard the issue of his past drug use.

Once Sherlock had accepted that there was a greater than ninety percent certainty John was his Linkmatch, he began to reconsider the wisdom of sharing a flat with him. Living with John had proved unexpectedly pleasant; however, as John was not entirely unobservant, there was a distinct danger that he, too, would realize Sherlock was his Linkmatch. There was the drug use in common, after all, and also as a mostly conventional person John monitored his Linkmatch's emotions, at least some of the time, and thus might notice that those emotions lined up with Sherlock's apparent state. And it was easily deduced that John, whatever the state of his resentment about his Linkmatch's past, definitely wanted to Fuse, which Sherlock considered untenable. John might be different from other average people of Sherlock's acquaintance, but no one was different enough for Sherlock to risk his mind.

There was, of course, every chance that John, again as a conventional person, would not think to question Sherlock's assertion that he had no Link. It soon became apparent, however, that Sherlock's best defense against the possibility of John becoming aware they were Linked was John's own unquestioning certitude that his Linkmatch was female. This assumption came up tiresomely often, whenever John had a date and expressed the tentative hope that she (always, always she) would be the one. It was also expressed every time John filled out a registration form or profile for yet another online Fusion-finding service, which he persisted in doing no matter how many times Sherlock (truthfully) told him it was only a waste of his time and, in the case of pay sites, money.

In time, Sherlock came to see John's almost willful blindness in this area as the perfect match to his own desire to never Fuse. Sometimes their unspoken arrangement seemed so perfect that he wanted to share its full dimensions with John, confess all the particulars and be vindicated. His Linkmatch was living with him, un-Fused, and John was happy, _happy_. Sherlock knew because he could feel it. Sherlock had been right about Fusion all along.


	4. Acquiescence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. Getting this story to co-operate and end is proving difficult, so here's a new chapter, but we're still one chapter from being finished. Sorry.

John knew Sherlock often thought John was an idiot, but when it came to the Linkmatch issue, Sherlock's presumption was starting to actually upset him. So John was so oblivious he couldn't immediately identify mud from one hundred different parts of the Thames estuary; that didn't mean he was so oblivious he didn't have the first clue that his flatmate was also his Linkmatch.

It wasn't as if Sherlock's claim to have no Link had kept its credibility for longer than the first week of their acquaintance. Partly because it was so obvious to John that there was no way in hell Sherlock was any kind of socio- or psychopath; partly because of a matryoshka doll of a conversation with Mycroft which left John convinced that he had been abducted once again solely so that Mycroft could manipulate him into thinking Sherlock did have a Link, by suggesting that Mycroft was trying to manipulate him into thinking Sherlock _didn't_ have a Link, by insinuating that Mycroft believed Sherlock did have a Link, but artfully arching a skeptical brow while he did so. It was confusing, but John supposed it was flattering that Mycroft had decided that John had to be manipulated into believing one thing by a show of trying to manipulate him into believing that thing's opposite. It was too much to hope that he'd stop trying to manipulate him at all.

So not only did Sherlock have a Link he was pretending not to have; Sherlock's brother thought it was important enough that _John_ know Sherlock had a Link that he had taken a personal interest in informing him. Now of course John hadn't immediately leapt to the conclusion that _he_ was Sherlock's Linkmatch; he wasn't a Holmes, after all, and his mind did need more time to turn over the evidence than that.

But he'd also been aware of Sherlock's past drug use from the beginning, which was one of the few things he knew for sure about his Linkmatch. And the more he got to know the Sherlock of now, the more obvious it became that Sherlock had led a horribly lonely life up to this point, much like John's Linkmatch. And if Sherlock was now more content, so was John's Linkmatch.

Honestly, it had been John's own assumption that his Linkmatch was female that had blinded him to the possibility for the longest time. He'd always trusted his instincts about that, which he thought was reasonable considering how intimate and personal a Link was. He'd thought of his Linkmatch as 'her' since he'd emerged, and he'd listed his Linkmatch's gender as female when he registered for Fusion-finding websites. After all, everyone must just know, or there wouldn't be a 'gender of Linkmatch" space on those forms, right?

In retrospect, Sherlock had actually been incorrect (and if they ever acknowledged the situation they were in, John would be sure to remind him of it) to tell John those website were a waste of his time, because if it hadn't been for the one website - one of the paid ones, fusionnotconfusion.com, John thinks – that required a daily mood tracking diary, John might have needed even longer to figure it out. But making a conscious effort to monitor his Linkmatch's mood changes eventually made it quite clear that those changes were, to put it bluntly, Sherlock's mood changes. 

And once John was sure Sherlock was his Linkmatch, he accepted immediately that Sherlock had probably known it from the very first day they'd met. In fact, since John knew his Linkmatch would've felt John's shooting much as John had experienced Sherlock's drug use, no doubt it had been easy for Sherlock to confirm as soon as he'd deduced the nature and approximate date of John's injury.

John had had to work through some entirely natural disappointment, resentment, and anger, when he'd realized that his Linkmatch had found him months ago and hadn't said a bloody word to him about it. He'd barely been able to look at Sherlock, for a while, and he'd thrown himself back into the Fusion-finding websites, less out of denial than a futile attempt to throw it into Sherlock's face – but what was the point?

Eventually, John became resigned to the fact that it wasn't him, it was Sherlock – Sherlock didn't want to Fuse with anyone, and John could hardly blame him, not when his mind was so extraordinary all on its own. John might be an exception for Sherlock in a lot of ways, but apparently not in this. In the end, John was really just average, completely normal, and Fusing with him would only drag Sherlock down, most likely. 

And for some time, it was enough just living with Sherlock, and knowing they shared a Link. When Sherlock was pleased, John knew, and it might almost be as good as being Fused, for all John knew, to be aware of exactly who was on the other end of your Link, each feeling what the other felt. Cases came and went, and when Irene Adler drugged Sherlock, she incidentally provided pretty clear confirmation that Sherlock was his Linkmatch. But Sherlock still maintained his tissue-thin claim that he had no Link at all, and John started to feel resentful again. So they weren't ever going to Fuse, and John had accepted that as what was best for Sherlock even though it went against everything he'd been taught to want for his Link. But why didn't Sherlock trust John with the truth? He might not be very good at deducing things, but he'd have to be beyond obtuse to not figure out Sherlock was his Linkmatch when he'd watched _and_ felt him being drugged!

John was also being a coward about the issue, though. He could've said something, but what if Sherlock just refused to acknowledge what he said? Used his dazzling reasoning to poke holes in all the things John thought he'd noticed that served as proof? What if he rejected John completely, sent him away? Sherlock knew John wanted to Fuse with his Linkmatch; would he believe that he could change his mind? 

In the end, John had attempted a single, awkward speech, to let Sherlock know that he had stopped looking for his Linkmatch, because wherever they were and whatever they were doing, they seemed happier now, and that was all that had ever mattered to John. Sherlock had acknowledged John's words with a nod and a curt "Good", and John supposed that was that.


End file.
